Modeling the heating uniformity contributed by a rotating turntable in microwave ovens

The role of a carousel in improving heating uniformity of food in a microwave oven is studied. A physics-based computational model is developed coupling the Maxwell's equations for electromagnetics and energy equation for heating inside a microwave oven with food load. The model is solved numerically using a finite element based computational software. Transient simulation of the heating process is done by considering the rotation of the turntable by repeating the computations for discrete angular positions of the turntable. The model is experimentally validated by measurements of point temperatures using fiber optic probes. Power absorbed in the food as a function of the angle of rotation of the turntable covering the entire cycle is available for the first time. Using various measures of heating uniformity, it is shown that the carousel helps in increasing the temperature uniformity of the food by about 40%. (C) 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.